My First Flash Fiction Experience
Since my writing career has started to gain some traction, I’ve had a few interviews and conversations in which I’m asked why I became a writer. I usually answer that I always remember clanking out stories on my mom’s old Smith Corona and mention Robert Heinlein’s “A Tenderfoot in Space,” or some of the other golden age writers whose work inspired me. All of that it true, but none of it is the truth. I didn’t realize this until recently, when I was updating my daughter’s MP3 player and noticed a familiar title. She doesn’t know this was released in 1971. She just knows compelling narrative when she hears it.
Wanna know why I started writing? Very likey, more than anything else, this is it. Dewey Bunnell‘s, “A Horse With No Name.”
I was looking at all the life
There were plants and birds and rocks and things
There was sand and hills and rings
The first thing I met was a fly with a buzz
And the sky with no clouds
The heat was hot and the ground was dry
But the air was full of sound
I’ve been through the desert on a horse with no name
It felt good to be out of the rain
In the desert you can remember your name
‘Cause there ain’t no one for to give you no pain
La, la …
After two days in the desert sun
My skin began to turn red
After three days in the desert fun
I was looking at a river bed
And the story it told of a river that flowed
Made me sad to think it was dead
You see I’ve been through the desert on a horse with no name
It felt good to be out of the rain
In the desert you can remember your name
‘Cause there ain’t no one for to give you no pain
La, la …
After nine days I let the horse run free
‘Cause the desert had turned to sea
There were plants and birds and rocks and things
there was sand and hills and rings
The ocean is a desert with it’s life underground
And a perfect disguise above
Under the cities lies a heart made of ground
But the humans will give no love
You see I’ve been through the desert on a horse with no name
It felt good to be out of the rain
In the desert you can remember your name
‘Cause there ain’t no one for to give you no pain
La, la …
300 words. Flash before it was a thing.
Leave a note and tell me why you do what you do.
